Can Your Elderly Parents Take Care of Themselves?
January 14, 2012, By Greg Hoard 0 comments
She lives alone in the country. Her nearest neighbor is a rifle shot away. In the pasture, there are horses: two paints, a sorrel and a buckskin. She often stands admiring them, a cane in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She loves it when they buck and whinny and canter along the rail fence. She remembers when she could ride and loved to ride.
“One of the true pleasures in my life,” she says.
Out in the yard, darting from the porch to the cover of the pine and cedar trees along the ridge, there are cats, a herd of cats. Most are blazing orange; others are gray and white. All are the result of an unfortunate visitor.
About a year ago, maybe longer, a bedraggled cat showed up at the back door. It had a broken tail. Its fur was gnarled. It looked like it was blind in one eye. She fed it, nursed it back to health, and, for that kindness, she has been rewarded with the herd.
“I don’t know how many there are,” she says, smiling. “They come and they go. Mostly, they come—one litter after another. But I like watching the little devils. They’re cute as can be. They keep me company.”
This is my mother. She just turned 84 years old. This is the woman who raised me on her own. This is a woman who has buried two husbands, the love of her life, and all too many friends.
This is a woman who cherishes the stillness and peace of the country, yet recognizes the threats presented by her isolation. She keeps a loaded 20-gauge shotgun behind the front door. In her bedside table there is a .38 Police Special, a Smith & Wesson. It’s right beside her rosary and her Bible.
She reads her Bible nearly every day. “I haven’t fired the pistol in years,” she says, smiling. “I’m not sure I still could, but it is there if I ever need it.”
Once or twice a week, someone comes from church to offer communion. Every so often she sneaks a shot of blended whiskey. She says it’s good for her heart.
She doesn’t have many visitors. Her sister comes to visit now and again. A niece stops by every week. A stepsister drives down from the city when she can.
Once in a while, when the mood strikes, she pulls the 1993 Cadillac out of the garage and drives uptown to meet old friends. They have coffee and a sandwich, talk about their aches and pains, their medications and their quarrels with the new, young doctor in town. “He’s stubborn and short in tone,” she says. “Everyone agrees. You know, he’s not from around here.”
Mom and her friends long for the days of Dr. Marvin, the kindly, soft-spoken physician who treated most everyone in the county for some fifty years. But like so many others, Dr. Marvin has passed, just as so much has passed.
